Mumbai: A 57-year-old builder allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself at his office in Chembur on Thursday. According to the sources, the deceased Sanjay Agarwal, who ow-ns Sanjona Builders was apparently under stress as one of his projects in the upmarket Chembur area had got delayed.
The reason behind his suicide is yet to be ascertained and the Chembur police have registered a case of accidental death.
The builder lived with his family at Chembur’s Sanjona complex in the Sindhi Colony. Earlier, Mr Agarwal was working at Nukem industry, a reno-wned chemical company.
Mr Agarwal had worked there for 20 years; later in 1999, he had started a company in partnership with Sunil Gupta, a builder.
A Chembur police officer said, “The builder shot himself with his own private licensed pistol at around 11.30 am. The post-mortem of Mr Agrawal’s body has been conducted by Rajawadi Hospital and the reason behind the suicide is yet to be known. We are investigating into the matter and will enquire to his family.”
Mr Agarwal was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead, deputy commissioner of police (zone-VI) Shahaji Umap said. Agarwal’s son, his brother-in-law and some office employees were present in the premises when the incident took place, the police said.
The police officer also said that, “According to the Mr Agarwal’s relatives, he was under depression since couple of weeks, as the his business was not flourishing and he was under financial debts.”
Industry body Credai MCHI’s president Nayan Shah said many developers in Mumbai are under tremendous stress to give timely possession of projects while they are fully at the mercy of approvals from authorities and government agencies. “Developers do not have any fall back mechanism to file complaints because as soon as they do so, various officials ensure his voice is muzzled and business interests compromised,” he claimed.
